PURPLE MASK OF KENDO NAGASAKI!

I asked Peter Thornley about the colours of masks he wore in the ring a few weeks ago. He stated that there was no actual significance to colours and if they were going to be ripped or removed. The first time it came off against Billy Howes he was wearing black.

Gawd, you youngsters. We can't be doing with all this Facepage stuff.

Here's the link

Feel free to join our facebook group Kendo Nagasaki - Past, Present, Future and see all the examples.

The blue masks look to me two different shades of royal blue, but I'm not going to argue. There's quite a bit of footage about with the purple mask. I'm pretty sure that some one of him fighting Wayne Bridges in it. The mask I saw him in live mostly was the blue one, but supporting the above it was early to mid 70's. The first masks as you say had very thin stripes on them. The 70's ones had the second stripe cut by the eye holes and the later ones had the third stripe cut by both the eye and nose holes. There was a five stripe mask worn in Europe too! Some of the later masks also had the second stripe just sitting above the eyes. The masks were tailor made for him. I have the ones sold in the web store and also the 50th Anniversary mask which I won in a raffle drawn by Bob Barratt. That mask was different and looks like a genuine fight mask as its slightly thicker and more a very dark charcoal than black.

Of course the black mask with red stripes was a special edition made for public appearances. The is a black one with gold stripes on his wall at his home which myself, my wife and Roland Platt had done for him as a special edition.

There were two different shades of blue - Navy blue (which was the commonest one back in the 70s) and a lighter blue which he generally wore if he was going to be unmasked (by Big Daddy or Robbie Brookside.) By the mid 70s, jet black was worn only if something bad was going to happen to the mask itself (ripped open by Haystacks, set on fire by George) or else backstage if Thornley was not fully in character. Red first appeared in 1976 for the RAH Kendo & George vs McManus & Logan match and became the dominant colour for the 80s/90s. I saw purple - actually more mauve - just one time at Croydon in '92.

He had four different colours. Black, Red, Blue and Purple. Wore purple a great number of times. Theres quite a few photos in our facebook group. Black and red masks were more common, but Blue was a regular colour. The blue masks were royal blue, but photos and film often made them look a different shade. Also if you scrutinise the stripes you will see they are positioned differently from one era to another.